You know, I find the BMW analogy interesting, but flawed. Could you ever imagine a BMW owner saying "What I'd really like to see is BMW start making upgrade kits for Fords and Chevys. If they did that, I'd sell my 325i and get a Taurus in a heartbeat." No? But how often do you hear wishful thinking that someday Apple will release OS X for X86?
Think about this for a second. Apple is viewed as a hardware company, and in the sense that the bulk of their revenues come from hardware sales, that's true. However, in their recent desktop lineup at least, it appears that a significant portion of the Mac userbase doesn't think too much of their hardware. Otherwise, why do so many worry that releasing OS X for X86 would cause everyone to jump ship? That implies that Mac users are a captive market, putting up with the platform in order to keep using the software. That's a very different situation from BMW's market.
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Think about this for a second. Apple is viewed as a hardware company, and in the sense that the bulk of their revenues come from hardware sales, that's true. However, in their recent desktop lineup at least, it appears that a significant portion of the Mac userbase doesn't think too much of their hardware. Otherwise, why do so many worry that releasing OS X for X86 would cause everyone to jump ship? That implies that Mac users are a captive market, putting up with the platform in order to keep using the software. That's a very different situation from BMW's market.